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From mstein@access1.digex.net Mon Jun 3 09:01:24 PDT 1996
Article: 40800 of alt.revisionism
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From: mstein@access1.digex.net (Michael P. Stein)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.ernst-zundel,alt.revisionism,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: 960523:The basic principle [of Holocaust denial] is, you don't have to prove anything.
Date: 3 Jun 1996 04:23:05 -0400
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
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References: <199605039728.ABC87127@infinity.c2.org> <4mgedg$6vk@d31rz0.Stanford.EDU> <19960523921.AAB79102@infinity.c2.org>
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In article <19960523921.AAB79102@infinity.c2.org>,
E. Zundel Repost wrote:
>The Zundelgrams are posted to alt.fan.ernst-zundel and alt.revisionism
>daily, unedited. The opinions expressed do not necessarily represent the
>views of the poster, who is not the author. Please follow up with your
>opinions. Ingrid makes reference to the thread "960502: It is amazing that
>the world has not yet been informed of this," which began with her article
><199605039728.ABC87127@infinity.c2.org>. Jamie's response is article
>, saved at
>http://www.almanac.bc.ca/cgi-bin/ftp.pl?people/r/rimland.ingrid/science.01
>Rich Green, a PhD candidate in Chemistry at Stanford University, has a
>number of scientific articles on this subject saved at
>http://www.almanac.bc.ca/cgi-bin/ftp.pl?people/g/green.richard.j
>See X-Headers for other relevant URLs.
>
>May 23, 1996
>
>Good Morning from the Zundelsite:
>
>I haven't been as diligent in doing the Nizkor Rebuttal items as I had
>hoped to be-the problem being that I don't have a library at my command to
>pull the necessary documents, and Ernst is so involved with "Zundelgate" I
>brace myself each time I try to nail him down and ask him to fax me some
>stuff.
>
>I have only finished 8 out of 66 Question & Answers, and I am sure the
>Nizkor people are "maxing" their hay out of that. (I wouldn't know; we
>are no longer speaking; each party is proceeding independently. . . )
Ms. Rimland, the Nizkor website is open for your inspection even if you
are not in communication with Mr. McCarthy. Why not look at it to check
your facts and see if there is anything you would call "making hay" before
you make unfounded speculations and accusations? There certainly has been
no loud crowing in alt.revisionism.
>But readers write to me and give me helpful tips on what is happening so
>far in Nizkor's favorite forum - the news groups such as alt.revisionism
>where you can go to wallow in the mud.
>
>The one that caused the greatest mirth is Jamie McCarthy's theory of
>self-combustion once bodies have been set on fire Wrote one, an
>engineering student: "Maybe he has now solved the world's energy crisis. .
Ms. Rimland, paper self-combusts once it is ignited. All this means
is that it requires an initial application of energy to bring the object
to ignition temperature, but once ignited, it produces enough energy to
sustain the reaction. Perhaps a better term would be "self-sustaining
burn." You cannot simply laugh this off. Since it works for paper, you
actually have to prove or disprove this for a body. Unless your
engineering student thinks that paper will solve the world's energy
crisis....
>Another wrote, in reference to the same reply:
>
>"The reply to Nizkor's breathless and hysterical blurb is tedious but
>fairly straightforward. The "science" part is relatively easy. It's really
>the "style" part that counts.
>
>McCarthy seems to have a platoon of jokers on hand
I thought you didn't go in for name-calling, Ms. Rimland.
>with oodles of time to
>throw thousands of balls up into the air at you, and then wants you to go
>pick them all up and throw them back at him. Such unproductive travail has
>to be avoided. Inasmuch as possible, avoid his agenda and provide a
>"global" response.
In other words, don't address the scientific arguments? Laugh and
handwave? Odd, that's what we "exterminationists" have been accused of
doing.
>I offer the following suggested approach.
>
>First of all, the basic principle is, you don't have to prove anything.
Not true. Whoever makes a claim bears the burden of proof.
>It's McCarthy that has back up his assertions and theories, not you.
That is quite wrong and quite intellectually dishonest. _All_
assertions and theories must be backed up by facts and logic, no matter
where they come from.
>And as usual, Nizkor is strong in heat department, but provides very little
>light.
Well, let's see if I can't shed a little light on the subject of
cremation.
>For instance, he attacks the assertion by the young engineering graduate
>that it takes 300 kg to cremate a corpse.
Well, where does that young engineering graduate get his data from?
Has he cremated a corpse? If he has no acceptable source of data, his
assertion is worthless and mentioning that he is an engineering graduate
is a fallacious appeal to authority. He is not exempt from providing a
checkable source for his assertion unless he claims he has performed the
experiment personally.
>Wrong, says McCarthy, once a fire is started, a corpse self-combusts.
>
>What does that mean? That zero fuel is required to cremate further corpses?
>That only 300 kg of coal was required to cremate 6 million, or whatever
>the number? Spontaneous combustion? If cadavers burst into fire on their
>own, why do commercial crematories waste time and money doing cremations
>differently?
Ms. Rimland, either you do not understand the issues, or you are being
disingenuous. The same is true of your anonymous young engineering
graduate. Paper does not burst into flame on its own, but it burns
without further heating once it is ignited. That is all that Jamie is
claiming for corpses. Note that you (correctly) have Jamie saying "once
the fire is started" - which ought to tell any intelligent and literate
speaker of English that the crack about cadavers bursting into flame on
their own is at best the work of an illiterate and at worst the work of
someone deliberately trying to mislead people.
There is a difference between the first corpse and the next corpse.
It is not only the body which must be heated; the oven itself must be
brought up to operating temperature - it has mass and the laws of
thermodynamics say that it too will draw off some of the heat energy rather
than permitting it all to be directed into the body. While 300kg of coke
may be required to heat a cold crematory oven to the ignition temperature of
a body, the oven is designed to retain heat and so it does not require an
additional 300kg to burn the next body if the oven is not cooled down
between cremations. Additional fuel is required only to make up for heat
loss. So it will take far less than 300kg to burn the second body if the
oven is not cooled down.
I know, Lagace says that the ovens must be cooled down. But he is not a
designer of ovens, only a user. As will be shown below, there is now
expert evidence on the table challenging Lagace's assertion. And the
experts had no idea they were supporting any Holocaust "religion" when they
gave their accounts - they were just talking to a newspaper reporter about
cremation in general.
>By McCarthy's own assertion, he and his people at Nizkor "have no
>credibility to lose". They have no expertise in anything.
Neither do you. And there are some people who have contributed
information who _do_ have some credentials. E.g., Richard Green in
chemistry (a doctoral student), and Scott Mullins in engineering.
>Well, it shows.
>
>A thousand ignorances assembled together do not make for one knowledge. We
>see nothing to be gained from unknowledgeable people chewing the cud, for
>months on end, over a topic on which they know little or nothing - in this
>case, the technology of the cremation of human remains - when such
>knowledge is readily available from experts.
>
>(Here I would refer to the testimony of Ivan Lagace on 5 and 6 April 1988
>at the Zundel trial. This testimony can be picked up at the Zundelsite -
>see Barbara Kulaszka's book. I would summarize the salient points from
>Lagace's testimony, in "bullet" form, and invite people to pick up the
>document for themselves for the detail).
>
>If Nizkor doesn't like Zuendel's expert, then let them get their own. But
>then they can't, can they, because if they did, they couldn't boast that
>they're beating the pants off Zundel-even though "they have no expertise"?
An interesting double-bind. But the point was never to boast. That is
an empty personal slur, not an argument.
>Besides, would any expert consent to give contradictory evidence, if he had
>any concern or pride as to his future standing as an expert in his field?
>The crematory oven has to be cooled off after each cremation. What else is
>there to say? No fuel - no cooling off period in between jobs - no
>cremation.
Sorry, but there is much more to say. Since you cannot be bothered to
wallow in the mud (as you put it), you never saw the following article I
posted. It was taken from something which appeared in my local free weekly
paper. It was about cremation, not the Holocaust, and the experts in it
were not (as far as they knew) engaged in defending any Holocaust "myths."
Yet they do indeed contradict all of your alleged experts. I have made some
enhancements in the footnotes (which are all mine) since I first posted the
excerpts.
Richard Rapp stands alongside a waist-high gurney and examines its
cargo: a human body zipped snugly into a white plastic bag and lying on a
thin slab of plywood. The gurney stands next to a 3-foot-square stainless
steel door. The door is set in the wall of an otherwise empty classroom-
size room. The room is painted yellow and bathed in fluorescent light.
Rapp unzips the bag several inches an looks at the body. It is a
wizened, old white man. Rapp rezips the bag. Then he turns to his nephew,
Robert Rapp, who wears a white lab coat and heavy-duty suede gloves that
come halfway up his forearms.
"Is the paperwork done?" Rapp asks.
"Yeah," Robert responds.
"OK, then."
Rapp steps around the gurney and punches a button on the control panel
by the door. The steel hatch rises at the head of the gurney. There is a
quiet roar, and a wave of heat washes over the Rapps and their charge. The
open door reveals a deep, narrow hearth that glows bright orange through the
heat-smeared air.
"Ready?" Rapp asks his nephew.
Robert nods, places his hand on the edge of the plywood at the foot of
the body, and shoves. The sheet of wood carries its load off the gurney and
into the chamber. Rapp shuts the door with another punch of a button. He
glances at the gauges beside the door and walks away. Robert wheels the
gurney toward a door leading to the back room, where yet another corpse
awaits its final disposition.
So begins another burn-to-urn cycle in the sacred commerce conducted by
Chesapeake Crematory Inc. (CCI) of Beltsville, one of the Washington area's
largest cremation facilities. Here, in a dreary landscape of warehouses and
distributorships, Rapp and his nephew performed some 900 cremations in 1995.
This year they will do even more. On this bright, bitter-cold February day
alone, CCI incinerated five bodies.[1]
[...]
The centerpiece of any crematory is, of course, the cremation oven, or
"retort." CCI's retort is a Phoenix II, the 17-ton state-of-the-art product
>from B&L Cremation Systems Inc. of Clearwater, Fla., one of a half-dozen
U.S. crematory oven manufacturers. The Phoenix II runs about $85,000.
The retort's primary chamber, currently occupied by Mr. James' body, is
96 inches long, 38 inches wide, and 29 inches high. That is more than ample
to accommodate a very large person and casket. The chamber's walls and
ceiling are lined with heat-reflecting ceramic tiles. The floor, or hearth,
is constructed from alumina silica that can withstand temperatures up to
3,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Embedded in the ceiling, right above where the
average corpse's chest comes to rest, is a giant blowtorch nozzle. It is
known in the trade as the "flame port."
As he once again checks the gauges on the retort, Rapp observes that
this third cremation of the day is far different from the first. Human
flesh requires extended exposure to 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit in order to
ignite.[2] For the first cremation of the day, when the retort is just
warming up, Rapp needs to use the flame port. It blasts the body with a
2,800 -degree gush of fire.
But by the time Mr. James' body enters the retort, the air in the
primary chamber is roiling well above 1,400 degrees. Shortly after the door
comes down, his body is aflame.[3]
Here is how it happens: The human body, which is 85 percent water,
burns outside to inside in a rapid cycle of layer-by-layer dehydration and
ignition. The heat dries out the skin; the dry skin ignites. That fire
dries out the next layer of muscle and fat, which then ignites. And so on,
until the internal organs are consumed.
According to B&L President Steve Looker, who designed the Phoenix II,
the average body gives off a modest 1,000 Btu per pound of meat (burning
wood, by comparison, gives off 6,000 Btu).[4] But an extremely obese
corpse - like the one Rapp recently had to burn in its casket because it
was wedged in so tightly - can run to 17,000 Btu. "That's like burning
kerosene," says Looker. The Phoenix II takes these differences into
account and carefully regulates the amount of oxygen entering the retort
to ensure a controlled, efficient burn.
[...]
The Romans also practiced cremation. But as with the Greeks, only
members of the wealthier classes could afford a private cremation. Indeed,
calling a fellow Roman's ancestors "half-burned" was a grievous insult that
implied that those forebears had been cremated on one of the public mass
pyres used to dispose of the poor.[5]
[...]
Ninety minutes into the burn cycle, Rapp checks on the corpse's
progress. He raises the retort's door about 10 inches and peers into the
hearth. It looks like a giant fireplace at the end of a cozy night. There
are no flames, but the chamber bed glows orange. Small chunks of whitish-
gray debris lie in the oven. A particularly large clump sits about halfway
back, just about where the hip was. Rapp closes the door and heads into the
storeroom to take care of a couple of things while the retort finishes the
job. (According to Looker, much of the burn time is devoted to breaking
down and whitening the bones, because "people expect nice white
remains.")[6]
[...]
In 1983, Rapp hung out his shingle at 18th and T Streets NW. Five
years later, he moved the operation to Silver Spring as he could operate
his own crematory. But shortly after he opened the new location, a
neighbor began an aggressive campaign to shut him down. In his drumbeat
of complaints to Montgomery County officials, the man claimed that Rapp's
oven was emitting nauseating smells and billows of black smoke. County
inspectors found no evidence to support these allegations.[7] In fact, the
crematory was never cited for any sort of operating violation.
Nevertheless, after spending $100,000 on legal fees without resolving the
feud, Rapp agreed in 1994 to relocate the crematory.
The bitterness still lingers in Rapp. Despite his personal feelings
about the importance of openness, he says he understands why many
crematories prefer a low profile. And when the topic of complaints about
"the smell" come up, an uncharacteristic harshness creeps into his voice.
Such smells, he says, are in people's minds, not in their noses. "This is
1996, not the turn of the century," he says, almost sneeringly. "With
today's technology, there really isn't much odor."[8] [...]
When the burn cycle is complete, Rapp switches off the retort, walks
through the storeroom, and turns into the area that houses the back end of
the retort. His nephew stands ready with a long-handled tool that looks
like a metal squeegee. At Rapp's signal, Robert opens the back door of the
retort and vigorously rakes the silvery debris into a chute that leads down
to a stainless steel bin. The material makes a chinking sound as it moves -
like embers being stirred in a fireplace. After two hours, this is what
is left of a human body: five to seven pounds of remains, depending on bone
structure.
[...]
Rapp points out several clearly identifiable bones among the cooling
chips and chunks. A piece of hip. An 8-inch strip - probably a radius or
ulna. A ball that once fit a hip or shoulder. In fact, the entire skeleton
is there. Bones are largely calcium, which burns only after lengthy
exposure to temperatures much higher than those in the Phoenix II.[9]
[...]
You can't give mourners bone fragments, so Robert hoists the bin and
gently pours its contents into the pulverizer. The pulverizer resembles a
small, battered lift-top freezer. A metal-screen drum slightly larger than
a paint can sits inside. Robert lowers the lid and hits a switch. The
pulverizer will reduce the chunky remains into a pile of matter with the
look and consistency of ground oyster shells.
"We've got another [pulverizer] that will take the [remains] down to
something with the texture of sand, if that's what people want," says Rapp.
It is a remarkably efficient system: a 200-pound body reduced to an
easily handled heap of base elements in just over two hours.[10] [...]
Source: "Keeper of the Flame," _Washington City Paper_, Vol. 16 No. 11,
March 15-21 1996, pp. 20-24.
Notes:
[1]Obviously they never heard that they could only do three or four or else
they'd damage their oven. After all, Lagace _is_ an expert.
[2]The article does not specify the scale; since it is for an American
audience I presume the 1,400 degrees refers to Fahrenheit. Mattogno claims
that older ovens worked at only 800 degrees C, yet they seemed to do the
job - but then, that would translate to about 1,400 Fahrenheit.
[3]Note that the writer actually contradicts himself here - in the paragraph
before, he said that "extended exposure" was required. Yet in the very next
paragraph, he says that the body is aflame shortly after the door comes
down. But the more important point is that the article firmly establishes
that the first cremation is different - that the flame port is used for the
first one, but it does not have to be used for the third one because the
oven is up to temperature. For those who missed it, this means that the
oven was NOT cooled down (contradicting Lagace).
[4]1,000 BTU per pound is modest, and I know that a newspaper article is
not a technical journal, but I read this as saying that the burn _is_ self-
sustaining provided that the body is kept in an insulated environment. Once
the burn is activated, there is a net energy gain from each pound of flesh,
even lean flesh. Please ask your engineering student to stop laughing and
start providing some rebuttal data.
[5]Contradicting the revisionist assertion that bodies could not have been
burned on mass pyres at Birkenau because such things could not have had
enough oxygen.
[6]I contacted Mr. Looker by phone. I asked him what the maximum
throughput would be if the only concern were burning as fast as possible -
say, in case of plague. He said one average adult body per hour. The
rating is really in terms of mass - he said ovens vary from about 100 to
200 lbs per hour. (His model is top-of-the-line, but of course you'd
expect him to say that.) He agreed it would be quite possible to burn two
undersized and emaciated women or 3-4 small children in the same period of
time. Without any prompting from me, he mentioned in passing that older
crematoria were quite capable of shooting out flames if overloaded, a
phenomenon he called a "candle." True, he did not say thirty feet; his
figure was "only" eight to ten feet. His own product is designed to avoid
this. Even so, he allowed that if he actively tried for it, there is a
decent chance he could produce the effect as well. This contradicts the
revisionist "expert" claim that flames cannot shoot out of crematorium
chimneys.
[7]Were I a "scholar" in the mold of Mark Weber or Greg Raven, I would of
course silently snip out this sentence.
[8]In this statement I see an implication that earlier technology might
indeed give off smoke and odor.
[9]This was news to Matt Giwer.
[10]But see note [6] above.
>As to alleged "internal contradictions".
>
>Revisionists do not claim to speak with one voice and never have. That's
>why the CODOH website exists: to encourage open debate on the holocaust.
>Each Revisionist speaks for himself, in his own quest for historical truth.
>
>Revisionists may, therefore, freely express conflicting opinions and many
>do so: without dissent and debate, there is obviously no issue.
>
>But contrary to where Nizkor comes from, there is no pain associated with
>Revisionist debate: Revisionism has no central authority, no "Politburo" to
>decree what is undeniable truth and what is heinous "denial", and to hurl
>thunderbolts from on high at the offending party.
Please identify this "Politburo," Ms. Rimland. Name names. I have not
encountered it. I have a fairly simple definition of heinous denial which
clearly establishes the difference between it and legitimate revisionism.
It is simply this: denial uses selective reading of evidence, rejects all
inconvenient eyewitness testimony and documents as being lies and forgeries
while embracing any convenient testimony (does Ernst still sell the
Lachout Document video?), and uses selective quotation and distortion of
evidence in its arguments. Legitimate revisionism follows intellectually
honest methods of inquiry.
>As in so many other fields of human endeavor, historical truth is really
>arrived at through debate over opposing views by knowledgeable individuals,
>periodic revision of the historical record, and new discoveries. In
>attempting to follow such a process, Revisionism has seen no evidence that
>would lead it to revise its main conclusions respecting the official thesis
>of Exterminationism.
What is missing from this description is that the debate must be
conducted using consistent and intellectually honest rules of evidence and
standards of proof. In my experience that has been missing from what you
call "Revisionism." Greg Raven has evaded all attempts to pin him down on
standard of proof. Raven and Mark Weber have made arguments based on
deceptive quotes out of context. So has Friedrich Berg - he ignored some
very inconvenient sections of the same technical papers he used as his
sources. Robert Faurisson gave a very dishonest picture of the nature of
the ballpoint pen markings in the diary of Anne Frank. Fred Leuchter out-
and-out lied about his qualifications, and made up ludicrous and fanciful
explanations of documents such as the nature of the gas testers.
(Apparently he did not see the letter on Topf stationery, with signatures
and enough stamps to send an elephant by airmail, which expressly mentioned
_cyanide_ detectors for the Kremas, where Leuchter declared cyanide was too
dangerous to use due to the risk of explosion.) The Lachout Document was
offered as evidence without being subjected to the same standard of
scrutiny and forensic testing demanded by "revisionists" for any document
supporting the orthodox history of the Holocaust. And so on.
Inconvenient documents are simply read out of the record with a naked
assertion of "Soviet forgery!" No forensic testing is offered, even for
documents which bear signatures (such as the letter from Bischoff to
Kammler, file copy signed by Pollock, mentioning a "Vergasungskeller.").
>Revisionism's conclusions are: (a) that gassings in specifically designed,
>homicidal mass gassing chambers didn't happen - the "gas ovens" are a
>propaganda tool; (b) that there never was a Hitler order that called for a
>genocide of the Jews, and (c) that the numbers of Jewish victims are
>irresponsibly inflated to boost the reparations claims and to gain moral
>and political advantage globally. (This is from one of EZ's letters to
>McCarthy).
However, it seems to come from a selective reading of the evidence.
>(By contrast) the Pope of the holocaust dogma, Raul Hilberg, ran away to
>revise his book, rather than to come forth and bear witness to his
>assertions at the 1988 Z|ndel trial. This does not augur well for the
>extermination cult. Anyone who reads the record of that trial will
>understand why.
>
>The revisionist position is not carved in stone as religious dogma,
>contrary to that of the exterminationists. Revisionists have always been
>open to credible proofs in support of other scenarios.
This I dispute, at least with respect to specific individuals I have
encountered. When cogent rebuttal arguments and evidence have been offered,
they did not respond, yet later repeated the same challenged arguments
without offering any counter-rebuttal. This is not intellectually honest,
and it also does not seem consistent with the assertion made above.
>Fifty years after the alleged event, we are still awaiting such proofs. . ."
One thing I have often encountered in "Revisionist" argumentation is
that it applies the standards of a courtroom to the Holocaust, and argues
like a defense lawyer, not a historian. My response is this: what standard
of proof is required, and do you require that same standard for other
historical events, such as Stalin's crimes?
>I couldn't have said it better myself!
I would be most interested in your answer to the previous question,
Ms. Rimland, especially considering your recent Zundelgram about Russian
atrocities against Germans.
Posted/emailed.
--
Mike Stein The above represents the Absolute Truth.
POB 10420 Therefore it cannot possibly be the official
Arlington, VA 22210 position of my employer.
From mvanalst@rbi.com Fri Jan 10 09:05:25 PST 1997
Article: 92055 of alt.revisionism
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From: mvanalst@rbi.com (Mark Van Alstine)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.culture.german
Subject: Re: Chuck re Swiger
Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 13:17:15 -0700
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In article <32d5d307.343132460@news.dmsc.net>, cswiger@westco.net (Cliff
Swiger) wrote:
[snip]
> Once again you call Wisenthau a liar by claiming an extermination gas
> chamber at Dachau which is in Germany.
That's Wiesenthal, Mr. Swiger. And in regard to your specious claim above,
the Simon Wiesenthal Center states the following:
"The Nazis classified their many hundreds of concentration camps on their
basis of their primary function. In a very real sense, all were death
camps because the death of the inmates, whether through overwork,
starvation/disease, or outright murder, was ultimately expected.
"Those sites, however, which functioned as extermination centers
(Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Majdanek, Sobibor, Belzec, and Chelmno),
were specially equipped for the gassing of hundreds of thousands of
victims each (millions altogether). All of these camps were located in
Poland, and for
good reason. Poland had far more Jews than Germany and the rest of
Western Europe combined. The Nazis also felt that the relative remoteness
of Poland's rural areas would also minimize reports of mass murder taking
place there.
Source: http://www.wiesenthal.com/resource/revision.htm#12
Note the reference to "extermination centers" and _not_ "extermination gas
chamber[s]," Mr. Swiger? You are clearly in err when you imply that the
issue is in regards to "extermination gas chamber[s]" rather than
extermination _camps_
And what does the Simon Wiesenthal Center have to say about extermination
centers (i.e. death camps)?
"A death (or mass murder) camp is a concentration camp with special
apparatus specifically designed for systematic murder. Six such camps
existed: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor,
Treblinka. All were located in Poland."
Source: http://www.wiesenthal.com/resource/36quest1.htm#6
Note the reference to "mass murder" and "special apparatus specifically
designed for systematic murder." The homicidal gas chambers at Dachau were
never used for systematic mass murder, Mr. Swiger. And when comparing
hokmicidal gassinf operartions at Dachau to the the six death camps on
Poland, Mr. Swiger, relatively few people were killed in the gas chamber
at Dachau. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Swiger, Dachau was not an
extermination camp and the Simon Wiesenthal Center never claimed it was.
> If it took 4 hours to unload the gas chamber in a best case you'd only
be able
> to send 1500 bodies to the crematories in a 24 hour shift. No where near
> 12,000 as is claimed.
Mr. Swiger, you seemed to have "confused" Barracke X at Dachau with the
Kremas at Birkemau! Why is that? Ignorance or duplicity?
The issue of how many people could be gassed is somewhat misleading, Mr.
Swiger, as it the bottleneck to the gassing operations at Birkenau was the
incineration of the victims. According to an estimate made by the
Auschwitz SS the number of corpses that could be incinerated in the four
Kremas every 24 hours was 4,416. However, by overloadeding the furnaces
the number of victims incinerated was increased to perhaps as much as
7,000-8,000 every 24 hours. (cf. Gutman, _Anatomy_,
pp.165-166,171,173,180.)
Of course, with the disabling of Krema IV in late 1943, the incineration
capacity was reduced by about 1,500 corspes per 24 hours. This meant that
the incineration capacity at Birkenau would have been approximately
5,500-6,500 victims per day. This caused unacceptable problems during
Aktion Ho"ss and incineration pits were used to take care of the
"overflow." The incineration pits, in _addition_ to the three Kremas,
could handle some 10,000 victims per day. (One set of pits augmented
Krtema IV [5,000 per day] and another handled the gassing victims of
bunker 2 [5,000 per day]). (cf. Ibid., pp.173,234.)
This would mean that the number of victims that could be killed _and_
disposed of per day at Birkenau could have been as high as 16,000 or so.
> ...Incinerating 4 or 5 corpses in 25 to 30 minutes? Totally
> asinine.
Then, Mr. Swiger, I'm sure you won't mind posting, for example, the heat
transfer equations, in specific regard to the Topf tripple-muffle furnace,
that proves that incinerating "4 or 5 corpses" in 25-30 minutes is
"totally asinine?"
> State of the art crematories take 1 to 3 hours to cremate
> just one corpse. Consult a crematory and find out for yourself.
Excellent advice, Mr. Swiger! Too bad you seem to have not taken it
yourself. From the Internet Cremation Society FAQ:
"The temperature at which cremations are done vary based upon the retort
manufacturer, but most machines operate between 1,500 to 1,900 degrees F.
The actual cremation time again varies depending upon the type of machine.
Low capacity retorts take approximately 3 hours to complete a cremation
while high capacity machines take less than one hour. In addition to the
type of retort, the size of the individual and the number of cremations
conducted during the day also affect the time. For example, in the retort
we operate, the first cremation of the day takes about two hours and the
second takes about an hour. That is because the retort already has a high
internal temperature at the beginning of the second cremation."
Source: http://www.cremation.org/faq.shtml#At what temperature
Please note, Mr. Swiger, that "high capacity machines take less than one
hour." Considering the operating temperatures, incineration times, and
number of muffles etc, the Topf triple-muffle furnace was indeed a "high
capacity machine."
Please _also_ keep in mind, Mr. Swiger, that there are (and were) laws
that prohibit commercial cremtoria from co-mingling the remains of the
deceased. This means that the civilian cremation process allows for _only_
one corpse to be cremated at a time in the muffle. Such restrictions,
however, did _not_ apply to SS concentration camp crematoria. This is
_why_ furnaces were equiped with multiple muffles and _why_ more than one
corpse was charged per muffle. Multiple muffle furnaces, like the Topf
furnaces, in addition to their high capacity, were more economical in the
SS concentration camp environment than single muffle furnaces. (cf. Ibid.
p.139.)
> But,this is technical and mathematical information that certainly doesn't
> have any weight against your emotional and fantasic imagination, does
> it Chuck? Sweet dreams.
_What_ "technical and mathematical information" would that be, Mr. Swiger.
So far _you_ have been long on wind and short on math. Typical denier: all
bark and no bite.
For those interested in proof of the Nazi Mr. Swiger's ignorant Holocaust
denial, vile Nazi beliefs, absolute intellectual dishonesty, and his
outright lies, please visit:
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi?people/s/swiger.cliff.g
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi?people/s/swiger.cliff.g/1996
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi?people/s/swiger.cliff.g/1997
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi?people/s/swiger.cliff.g/swigers-politics
Mark
>
> Cliff Swiger
> Wahrheit macht frei
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes
not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties--but
right through every human heart--and all human hearts."
-- Alexander Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago"
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